Isolated town in northern border region

As it turned out, he underestimated the speed at which those artisans spread their knowledge.

Within three months, the name "Master Craftsmen of the Great Chu Kingdom" spread from the northern border to the southern frontier, from the gates of the Imperial Academy to the countryside. The craftsmen who returned to their hometowns, following Xiao Lie's instructions, established engineering courses in local public schools and enrolled their first batch of students. Among them were the sons of blacksmiths, apprentices of carpenters, children of farmers, and even laborers who carried loads at the docks.

What they learned was exactly the same as what was taught at the Imperial Academy—starting with the character "一" (one), then counting, then addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, then fractions and decimals, then equations and geometry, then force and motion, then combustion and oxidation.

At first, nobody took it seriously.

Someone passing by the school heard them reciting "One plus one equals two" and chuckled, saying, "They have to learn this?"

But a few months later, the first batch of students began to apply what they had learned at home—some used arithmetic to calculate the accounts of the fields, some used geometry to measure the angles of the beams of the houses, and some used the principle of "oxidation" to figure out a new way to prevent ironware from rusting.

The news spread faster than any notice.

People who were just passing by the school gate to watch the excitement began to peek inside. Some people squatted outside the window to listen after finishing their work, while others even took a detour to the school gate just to see what the people inside were doing.

Then some people started borrowing the handwritten books from the craftsmen to read, and after reading them, they passed them on to another person, who then passed them on to a third person.

In less than half a year, Xiao Lie's book "A Brief Introduction to Engineering" was copied countless times by the public. The handwriting varied, and the paper was sometimes rough and sometimes fine, but the content was exactly the same.

The topic of conversation in the teahouse shifted from "whether the King of the Northern Frontier will fight" to "the things the King of the Northern Frontier taught are really useful."

A porter at the dock, clutching a shabbily copied copy of "A Brief Introduction to Engineering," squatted by the dockside. He flipped to the page about "effort saving on inclined planes," glanced at it, then looked at the bundle of cargo beside him to be loaded onto the ship, and muttered to himself, "If we used an inclined plane to push it up, wouldn't we not have to carry it?"

An old boatman nearby scoffed, "Stop worrying about all that nonsense."

But the next day, a plank was indeed placed diagonally across the ship's side at the dock. The laborer pushed the baskets of goods up the plank, saving him half the effort compared to the day before.

As he squatted on the deck to rest, he took out the book "A Brief Introduction to Engineering" from his pocket and rubbed the cover. The cover was blackened by sweat and oil, but the words were still legible—"A Brief Introduction to Engineering. Written by Prince Ning, Xiao Lie."

He closed the booklet and put it back in his pocket.

When the other people on the dock gathered around to look at the sloping plank, no one spoke. Some people simply ran their fingers slowly along the plank, as if they were reconfirming the angle that had already been verified by the actual object.

The news reached the ears of the aristocratic families right after the autumn harvest.

The powerful families of Yongzhou had long been bound to Xiao Lie's cause. Their commercial lifelines were in the hands of the Limin Chamber of Commerce, half of their land had been confiscated, and the remaining half could only be maintained through cooperation with Xiao Lie. They dared not move, nor did they intend to.

But all the powerful families outside of Yongzhou panicked.

The old patriarch of the Cui family in Jiangnan flipped through a couple of pages of the "Brief Introduction to Engineering" he had copied from a folk book in his study, then put it down. He picked it up again, flipped through a couple more pages, and put it down again. He repeated this process three times before finally tossing the book on the table, standing up, taking a few steps, then returning to his steward and saying, "He's digging deep."

The butler didn't dare to reply.

Grandpa Cui pointed at the booklet, his fingers trembling slightly: "Do you see? The things he teaches are actually useful! Those common people can learn arithmetic to do accounts, learn geometry to measure land, learn that oxidation can prevent rust! This is much more useful than reading the classics! You can read the classics your whole life, but will that prevent you from rusting?"

The butler whispered, "Master, the classics are about self-cultivation, family management, governing the state, and bringing peace to the world..."

Old Master Cui interrupted him: "What's with this 'cultivating oneself' nonsense? Do you even know what people are saying these days?"

The butler remained silent.

Old Master Cui picked up the booklet on the table, turned to a page, and read aloud: 'The so-called force is that pushing an object moves it, pulling it brings it closer. This principle is used daily without being noticed, only the wise discern it.' Look at these words! Ordinary people can understand them! Pushing moves it, pulling brings it closer—isn't this easier to understand than 'investigating things to acquire knowledge'? If they all think this is more useful than the classics, who will still read the classics? If they don't read the classics, how will they pass the imperial examinations? If they don't pass the imperial examinations, who will come to our Cui family to study? If they don't study, how can we maintain our status as a distinguished family?"

He slammed the booklet on the table with a loud but deep thud, like a crack slowly extending forward from the center of the tabletop. It hadn't even touched the edge yet, but you could already see which direction it was heading along the wood grain.

The butler finally spoke up: "Master, what should we do then?"

Old Master Cui paced back and forth in his study three times, then stopped and said, "There are people who are more anxious than we are."

He was referring to Jiang Min.

Jiang Min lived in the villa for more than five months, and did nothing during those five months. She copied books, read notes, and stood by the window watching the eaves of the Imperial Academy every day, like a canary confined in a villa, so quiet that people almost forgot she existed.

But she was waiting.

Wait until those craftsmen graduate, wait until those teaching materials circulate among the people, wait until those aristocratic families start to panic.

Wait for them to come and beg her.

One night in the seventh month, the steward of the Cui family in Jiangnan knocked on the back door of the villa. He was dressed in plain clothes, with his head down, like a servant who had come to deliver vegetables, but the moment the door opened, he handed an envelope out from his sleeve.

Jiang Min opened the envelope in the study, read the letter inside, and then burned it over the oil lamp. The flames climbed up the edge of the paper, swallowing the writing into ashes, which fell into the copper basin and crumbled into a small clump of black powder.

She didn't reply immediately. She cleaned up the ashes in the copper basin, sat down again, and finished copying a page of the scroll. Only after writing the last word of the scroll did she put down her pen and say to the door, "Tell the person who comes that I understand."

Three days later, the second letter arrived. Then came the third, and the fourth.

From Jiangnan to Sichuan, from Qilu to Jingxiang, the messengers of aristocratic families were like arrows released by the same hand, shot from different bowstrings, and landed before the threshold of the same villa.

Jiang Min opened and burned the letters one by one, and the ashes in the copper basin grew more and more each day, while the outline on her wrist illuminated by the firelight became clearer and clearer each day.

In the eighth month, she finally finished reading all the letters and sat in the study for an entire afternoon.

The letters were all very similar—the major families expressed the same sentiment: they were willing to join forces with her to deal with Xiao Lie. But they wanted a promise, a substantial promise that they would be willing to gamble everything on.

Jiang Min placed the final stack of letters on the table, gently smoothing the edges of the papers with her fingers, then whispered, "What they want is co-governance."

She paused, then added, "Then I'll let them co-govern."

That night, she wrote a reply. The letter was short, only three lines: "In the name of the Princess Consort of the Northern Frontier, I promise you all: First, the old system of aristocratic family landholdings will remain unchanged; second, the selection of officials through the civil service examination will require the joint discussion of aristocratic families; third, Xiao Lie will retire to the background, and political affairs will be discussed and decided by the court."

She made seven copies of the letter, sealed them in seven envelopes, and gave them to different messengers to deliver.

The messenger left the villa in the middle of the night. The moonlight was faint. Several figures slipped out through the back door and quickly disappeared into the night, like drops of water being poured into an inkwell, indistinguishable from one another the moment they sank.

Jiang Min stood by the window watching them disappear into the alleyway, then closed the window, added another handful of charcoal to the ashes in the copper basin, and watched the scraps of paper burn completely to white ash before turning back into the inner room.

Two months later, a strange phenomenon began to appear in the official documents from all over the Great Chu – almost all the reports from the prefectures mentioned “banditry”.

Cangzhou reported that bandits were roaming the territory, robbing merchants and travelers, and requested additional grain and funds to recruit local militia to protect the border.

It is said that bandits have gathered in Youzhou and three villages have already been attacked. The villagers have formed their own militia and request the court to provide the necessary armor and weapons.

Qingzhou said that refugees flocked to the border and formed bandits, and each village recruited young men to guard the border. They earnestly requested approval.

Even in the heartland of Jiangnan, several incidents of "bandits robbing granaries" were reported, especially frequently in Cui's territory, with a report of "banditry" being sent to the capital almost every ten days.

When Xiao Lie was in the Northern Frontier, he would read these memorials, but now he spends most of his energy at the Imperial Academy, and these kinds of civil affairs are mostly approved by officials from the Northern Frontier faction. When those officials saw the memorials about "bandits," they felt something was amiss—there weren't this many bandits in previous years—but each memorial was written in great detail, with the date, location, number of people, and amount of losses all included, and there were no obvious flaws.

So, as usual, they approved the "recruitment of local militia, allocation of grain and fodder, and manufacture of weapons."

Those approvals were issued from the capital, falling into the hands of various prefectures and powerful families, turning into recruited militias, fortified villages, and stockpiled weapons and arrows.

Behind the Cui family's old house, a newly built granary has been erected. The door is locked tightly. From the outside, it looks like a pile of firewood, but inside it is full of grain and ironware.

The Zhao family in Sichuan raised the walls of their old house by three feet, added crenellations, and replaced the gate with thick wooden planks covered with iron sheets.

The Sun family of Qilu raised over a hundred men on their estate, who drilled daily in the open space behind the estate, claiming it was to "drive away bandits and protect themselves."

The knives those men were carrying came from the Cui family's blacksmith shop. The shop's books listed them as "farm tools," but the actual knives they forged had sharpened blades and thickened backs, making them nothing like farm tools.

Jiang Jun wasn't idle either.

After the old Chen Kingdom was destroyed by Xiao Lie, the royal orphan of Chen Kingdom wandered in the territory of Jing Kingdom and was taken in by Jiang Jun. Jiang Jun raised the child in a villa in Jing Kingdom, nominally as a "guest", but in reality he hired the best teacher to teach him to read, learn etiquette and read the old history of Chen Kingdom.

That child is fourteen years old this year. His surname is Yuan and his given name is Jia. He is the cousin of Yuan Jia, the last emperor of the Chen Dynasty.

At the end of the eighth month, Jiang Jun summoned Yuan Jia and said to him in the main tent, "Do you want to restore your kingdom?"

Yuan Jia clenched his fists and remained silent for a long time before finally saying, "I want to."

Jiang Jun nodded, unfurled a map, and pointed to several locations within the former territory of Chen, saying, "These are the former subordinates of Chen. After Xiao Lie destroyed Chen, they didn't surrender; they scattered and hid in the countryside. I've already sent people to contact them, and they're willing to support you as their lord. When the time is right, you can start an uprising within the former territory of Chen, and the powerful families of Chu will come to your aid."

Yuan Jia looked at the dense markings on the map, his finger slowly sliding along the border of the old Chen Kingdom, finally stopping at the rubber forest that Xiao Lie had marked off, and clenched his fingers.

Jiang Jun gently removed his finger from the map and said, "Don't rush. Wait until things get chaotic in Chu before you make a move."

He rolled up the map and put it in the cabinet, then turned to look at the sky outside the tent. It was late autumn, and the wind was colder than it had been two months earlier, carrying the scent of dry grass and trees as it blew through the tent flaps.

He said in a low voice, "He's still teaching."

No one answered him from outside the tent.

At the Imperial Academy, Xiao Lie was indeed still teaching.

After the first batch of national craftsmen graduated, he recruited a second batch of students. This time, the number of applicants was more than ten times that of the first batch. The steps at the entrance of the Imperial Academy were crowded with people dressed in all sorts of clothes. Some came pushing wheelbarrows, some walked for three days with bundles on their backs, and some people's hands trembled so much when they pressed their fingerprints on the application forms that they couldn't even dip the ink properly.

Xiao Lie stood in the classroom looking at the hundreds of new faces below the stage. He stood on the platform for a while, then picked up the chalk and wrote the character "一" (one) on the blackboard, a character he had written countless times.

He began by saying, "Today, I'll teach you to recognize your own names first, and then we'll learn to count."

There was silence in the audience, then someone awkwardly raised their hand.

Xiao Lie nodded: "Speak."

The man stood up, his voice a little hoarse: "Your Highness, I heard that your previous batch of students all became national craftsmen. Can I also become a national craftsman?"

Xiao Lie put down the chalk, looked into the person's eyes, and said in a calm tone, as if stating something already certain: "Yes. But you must first learn to write your own name."

The man sat down and, with his head down, wrote a single character crookedly on the paper.

Xiao Lie turned around and continued writing on the blackboard.

The leaves outside the classroom window are turning yellow one by one. The wind blows in through the corridor, stirring up a few pages of paper that haven't been pressed down on the desk. The edges of those pages curl up and then fall back down, like a row of pages being turned, not yet reaching the page they should stop on, so they continue to move forward.

Xiao Lie didn't turn around. He wrote the third character, then stopped and waited for the students below the stage to finish copying those lines.

The wind is still blowing outside the window.

The weapons and provisions gathering in the distance, the arrows being sharpened and the warhorses being fed, the secret letters being sent out one by one, and the knots being tightened one by one, have not yet flooded into the classroom window.

Xiao Lie stood on the podium, looking down at a student's crookedly written "three," and reached out to add a stroke next to the crooked horizontal line, saying, "The horizontal line should be straight, not slanted."

The student nodded and rewrote it.

Xiao Lie straightened up and walked over to the next student to look at him.

The sky outside the window was slowly darkening, and the twilight was like a layer of glaze being evenly applied, spreading down from the top of the roof beams, turning the blackboard behind him and the unfinished line of writing on it into a dark gray.

No one has come to knock on that door yet.